


all the ashes in my way

by Skelettoine



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Billy bonds with Will over trauma, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Is Alive, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Post-Season/Series 03, Rating May Change, Steve does not trust Billy, they've been through some shit but they'll be ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2020-07-11 18:18:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skelettoine/pseuds/Skelettoine
Summary: When Billy opens his eyes to the white ceiling of a hospital room, it’s less like waking up from a bad dream and more like wading through the shallow waters he’s been drowning in.-What does one do after getting possessed, made to kill and corrupt and finally almost eaten by a interdimensional monster?





	1. Chapter 1

When Billy opens his eyes to the white ceiling of a hospital room, it’s less like waking up from a bad dream and more like wading through the shallow waters he’s been drowning in. His body is floating on the meds they put him on, and he thinks of the pain he should be in, when he gets glimpses of the bandages around his torso, while his mind flits between sleep and the waking world. Sometimes he feels like someone is there; not the cold thing, the freezing slime sliding through his veins. Someone warm and breathing, buzzing around him and he wants to reach out. Feel skin that isn’t clammy with fever and sweat.

No matter how much his body yearns to touch, his limbs won’t cooperate with him, the meds keeping him so heavy, it would make no difference if he were chained to the bed; so he succumbs. A memory surfaces in his muddy mind; of the fighting he did in the beginning, how it hurt him, held him down, wrestling and screaming, with as much effort as it would take to swat away a fly. He remembers becoming bendable, a thing to be wielded. Giving in is easier than trying to rise up when he doesn’t know the fist that’s going to knock him down again.

Over the days he gets more lucid, starts to take in his surroundings in the way a caged animal observes the bars it's stuck behind. There is no tugging in him to go anywhere else, no instinct that isn’t his that tells him he needs to leave, only to guess what other horrors he’s going to commit.

They tell him what happened, the girl he saw in the void, the one that knew about his mothers sandals and dress; Eleven. Max stands in the corner of the room while she explains the thing that took hold of him, pale and observing him with a foreign kind of fear, looking between him and Eleven while squeezing her boyfriends hand. They talk about the thing, call it the Mind Flayer, explain the place it first took possession of him, name it the Upside Down, give him history and reasons that are supposed to help him comprehend all that happened. All it does is empathize the inherent wrongness of it all. The surreal, stomach turning impossibilty of a creature like that to even exist in their world; the one that lived in his body.

Thing is, Billys memories are simultaniously blurry and painfully sharp. There’s gaps of only shivering, feeling his body burning and freezing at the same time. He sees things the Dark wants him to do, sees them so clearly as if he were commiting the crimes himself at that very moment; sees Mrs Wheelers skull cave against the shelf, her crumbling form on the floor, before he remembers he doesn’t want to do that. He walks among the streets, sees people he used to hang out with in school and walks right past them because he sees himself luring them to something they will not return from.

There are other memories he knows are not his own. They multiply the more he takes with him into the darkness, the more he helps the thing absorb. Flashes of locations and faces, light and pain and an ever lingering crawling feeling creeping down his neck. They’re all connected, but none of them are able to communicate in any other way than to share Its will, to help it grow. He needs to close his eyes when those resurface, grab the sheets hard and tear at his own mind until he’s sure it’s just him again.

Then there’s the memories of the things that he actually did do. Heathers red swimsuit in contrast with the gray concrete floor, blood on a white carpet. The flash of the light on a shard of glass and Max’s terrified face. He looks out the window, past the swooping planes of trees, towards the sky and whispers ‘Seven feet high.’, remembers the sea and his board under him, her smile warmer than the sun that day.

-

His dad and Susan come by eventually, too, Neil thin lipped, talking about how Billy was lucky the medical bills were covered, how he was to pay for the cost of his car that he totalled in the accident that landed him in the hospital in the first place. Billy says nothing, only looks past the face of his father and tries to recall that particular taste of fear. Tries to find it in him to be afraid of something as trivial as Neil, who knows nothing of pain (so much pain), of standing up against something god would tremble in front of.

Because he did stand up, Billy remembers, when Susan turns to him at the end of their visit, Neil already out the door, remembers when she says: ‘You’re going to be alright, honey’ and there are tears in her eyes, when she adds ‘I don’t know what we’d have done otherwhise.’ There’s a second where he thinks she’s going to touch his hand, but she changes her mind when she notices him tensing, expecting to be burned by everything sunny and warm. She smiles shakily at him before she leaves .

Billy looks after her for a long time.

-

It takes weeks for him to get out of the hospital. The first time he sees the scars, angry red lines criss crossing over his torso, it hauls him right back, like he’s stuck in the moment; dozens of teeth burrowing into his skin, his blurry vision full of the monsters form, decaying pink and gray convulsing under the power that keeps it together, the grotesque darkness that exists in this universe entirely out of the will to consume. And while he feels it tear his skin, his mind is torn and shred in equal savage brutality, clawed apart in the way things that have lost their value are.

It takes the touch of a nurse to get him back into his present body and before he can catch up with himself, he sees his hand take hold of the wrist of the man so tight, he can feel the bone crunch under his fingers. The nurse squirms in his grip, even says something, Billy thinks, but it’s as if he’s under water, the words getting lost in the density around him. He lets go eventually, forcing everything inside of him to pry his fingers loose. The nurse snatches his hand away, holds it protectively against his chest, a dark frown on his face and Billy can hear him think: ‘Freak’. He looks away.

It takes an awkward pause, but the nurse eventually points to a set of clothes on a shelf in the bathroom, ‘supplied by your next of kin’ and flees the room, as soon as he can make sure that Billy has understood.

The clothes feel strange on his skin, worn denim soft on raw flesh, the familiarity so strange, when it still doesn’t feel like his body is truly _his_. He looks in the mirror again, after he’s fully dressed and doesn’t recognize the person looking back, stringy blonde hair and blue eyes eerily bright in contrast with the dark shadows underneath them. He moves his hand around, to make sure the person in the mirror is him, turns around to leave, throws a glance as quick as possible back to confirm; this is him.

-

Billy Hargrove is himself, and it takes him a full ten minutes to get up the courage to go into the sunlight. He smokes through the pathetic rest of his pack of cigarettes, sees the driver get more impatient by the second. It’s some suit guy, some government foot soldier who’s supposed to bring him home, his camaro still in the repair shop (treat from the spy agency or whatever). The more agitated the suit guy gets, the more Billys own frustration grows, and he’s torn between self hatred for his weakness and the all consuming fear that brushes away the last of his pride. That had him sobbing on the bathroom floor in the public showers of the pool and that really does it for Billy.

He stomps out his last cigarette, straightens his jacket and without even taking another breath, steps into the sunlight and waits. And waits. The warmth of the sunlight shines on him softly, a gentle caress of his bruised face. It’s nice and comfortable and Billys skin crawls. Not in the way it would have while _he_ was still inside of him, rather the association of agony, the expectancy of unbearable pain.

Billy puts up the collar of his jacket, draws up his shoulders and wonders if he’ll ever be able to enjoy the sun like he used to.

Suit guy is happy, holds open the door for him expectantly and Billy gets into the dark car that’s supposed to get him home. Home to his family and his life, something Billy had not thought too bad of a couple of weeks before. He had a job with the best hunting grounds in Hawkins, women drooling over him like starving animals and Billy bathed in their attention, let it shine on his body like the sun. The pay wasn’t bad either and he even liked some of the women there, liked Mrs Wheeler the best (he shoves that thought far, far back in his mind). He even might have gotten into community college, get a degree that would allow him to get the hell out of this shithole. A future bright enough it made the present okay.

Now he doesn’t know what to do with that. That life feels like it was lived by someone else, so far away from him, he barely sees the sillouette. Billy Hargrove now seems more like an empty name than a person and somehow he is supposed to navigate the shell of that as if nothing ever happened to him.

It’s not the first time he feels like that, he realises. Alone and small and afraid and hurt. Only now there is no one to call, no one to beg to return, no thinking ‘if only she was still here, this wouldn’t be happening’. Because even though it feels the same, Billy is not a child anymore, knows no one will come and rescue him. That he will have to navigate through the emptiness on a ship he doesn’t know how to steer. There is no fight left in him and the simple thought of it makes him miss his hospital room, the routine of the nurses and days of sleep.

They still put him on pain meds, but not nearly as strong as the ones he first woke up to and the drive makes his sides burn, a thumping pain that goes through his whole body. He takes deep breaths, in and out and tries to focus on the landscape flying past him. It all blurrs together after a while and when he feels his eyes grow heavy, he doesn’t struggle for the conscience he doesn’t want anyway. It’s a long drive home.

He flits in and out of dreams and shadows, a flash of teeth like the reflection in the cars window or long writhing limbs like swaying trees or cold decaying breath like when the suit guy opens the window for fresh air.

They drive past the fields and Billy has an almost déjà-vu of scorching heat, of feeling extensions of himself burn until he’s only a writhing pathetic organism. A shudder goes through him, because this he would have remembered; this is a picture that would have been clear in the haze of his memories of those days. The fact that he remembers the things past memories makes him want to claw his insides out.

When they pass the mall, Billy wants to look away, can’t quite bring himself to. They’ve already started cleaning up the wreakage, big trucks and cranes moving slowly through the mountains of dead neon signs and brightly coloured walls. The things that gave the mall its life, the excitement of something happening in this hicktown now sprawled across like futuristic corpses. Billy has half a mind to jump out of the car and search for its corpse too, only stops to because he remembers the distinct feeling of it disappearing into fine dust, the rot and filth losing hold of where they’ve hooked into his flesh and mind. It’s gone.

‘It’s gone’ says Billy under his breath, as if to confirm.

‘A shame really, finally some real economy for this backwards town’, says suit guy with a dismissive curl of his lip, looking at the remains like they offended him.

Billy nods, but only to himself, thinks again. It’s gone.

-

It’s gone but as he stands in front of his fathers house he can’t help but wonder how much of himself it took with him when it vanished.

Stepping onto the paved way through the lawn leading to the door, every step feels so foreign, by the time he reaches for the handle he’s out of breath and not only because his ribs still give him hell. He knows no one will be in at this time of day, Neil and Susan both at work and Max god knows where with her little freak friends. Billy doesn’t know if he’s glad for it or not.

The house is still the same, the smell of it, the feeling. The way the light comes through those awful frilly curtains, the living room clean from anxiety, beer bottles under the sink, the subtle dent in the door frame to Billys room. The smell of his cologne is around him when he steps into his room and this is the first unfamiliar thing; he can’t remember the last time he was here, doubts anyone from his family would have touched his things. The doors to his closet are wide open, clothes half thrown out, sweaters and covers lying on the floor. The nightstand next to his bed is thrown over, the things usually standing on the big cupbard spawled over it and the floor, the mirror on it cracked like under a fist and Billy looks at a dozen reflections of himself. He looks pale, exhausted.

He’s not quite sure how long he stares himself down in the mirror but the next thing he knows is that he starts swaying, narrows his eyes at his clones, wheezes ‘fuck off’, throws the bag with the few things he had on him that night in the corner and himself onto the bed and passes out right then and there.

-

He wakes up on the floor, wide eyed and a snarl on his lips, half panting half growling at the darkness around him. When he finally makes out the shapes around him and realizes where he is, he realizes he can’t do this. Sees days and weeks in front of him that for the life of him he cannot will to take form. What does one do after getting possessed, made to kill and corrupt and finally almost eaten by an interdimensional monster?

Then he remembers, in the hospital, Max and her friends, the retelling of what actually happened that damned night last October, about the spy, the Byers kid. The kid that seems to be doing pretty damn fine nowadays and there’s an anger in that thought, a pathetic kind of jealousy, of spite and Billy will not admit to himself the second he thought of seeking advice from the freak kid just because they got possessed by the same fucking nightmare.

He glares outside, the moon bright and eery and Billy feels dizzy looking at it, swallows and thinks ‘thirsty’. As he stands in the kitchen, filling up a glass with tap water he thinks how it is still weird to get used to that again, the intake of fluid, of nutriens. He didn’t need any of that while the Mind Flayer held him up with sheer will. More room to fill him up with more darkness, another edge, another gnawing feeling. Billy thinks he’ll keep the hunger, but his throat hurts and he thinks he might have screamed before waking up on the floor. The water pools cool in the bottom of his stomach and he spills half the glass on himself as he scrambles to the nearest corner, because _he’s back, he saw him, reaching out-_

The nails of his fingers dig onto the flesh of his hands so hard he almost feels blood and it’s more shame than anything else when he stares at the dark swaying branches of the tree outside.

 _Maybe_ , he says to himself, _only if all else fails_.

-

A week later he almost crashes into another car on his way to the Byers.

He has barely slept since that first day at his fathers house, dreams starting to follow him back into the waking world and he’s had enough, enough of being scared of windows and light and loud noises. Enough of being haunted when the demon is long dead.

The second he gets back behind the wheel is the first time in weeks he has remotely felt safe, like himself and he almost starts to weep right then and there in the parking lot, his hands finally feeling like they’re where they belong and the smell of his car hugs him and he _misses_ her. Misses her laugh and her hair, like his own, the sound of her voice when she would still read to him. The feeling of her arms around him.

And that’s when he decides he needs to do something, so he stands at the porch of the place where he first lost a chunk of his memory and he grimaces a smile at the irony.

He raps three quick knocks on the door before he can change his mind and the next second he hears voices in various arrays of distress and he’s about to turn on his heels when the door flies open and a short woman stands before him, her hair messily falling around her shoulders and a kindness in her exhausted face when she smiles up at him unsurely.

‘I’m sorry, who are you?’ she asks and Billy is so tired. So tired and this woman looks at him like he’s a wounded bird on her porch.

‘My name’s Billy. I’d like to talk to Will Byers.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm in denial over the ending, so i wrote this  
> this gonna be long lads so strap youself on, we going on a rollercoaster  
> i apologize for all mistakes, I'll edit this when it's not 4am


	2. Chapter 2

There’s an air of oppression over Hawkins, one Billy has felt the very moment he stepped out of his car the day they moved there. It seems to be the essence of being stuck somewhere, of being part of an endless circle of hell; the feeling, that there is no way to move forward. That he could drive for hours and know that he’s still bound to this fucking place. Still bound by the person who humiliates him, who drove away and erased the sun and it leaves him absolutely powerless. And the only rebellion against being without power is to be full of anger.

Because that’s what wild animals do when they’re caged, thrash and claw against the walls, even if it kills them, the instinct to _get out_ stronger than any regard for their own well being. Billy has been so busy having nightmares, his skin feels like his own for the first time in weeks when he awkwardly stands on the Byers porch and his entire body screams _run_.

‘Will is out with his friends right now’ Mrs Byers says, opening the door a little wider, with something like recognition on her face, even though he could not remember having ever seen her. But that means little these days, he thinks bitterly. Then again, the Byers kid is _her_ kid. For all he knows she could know more about what he did than he does.

‘He’s going to be back pretty soon though. You could wait for him, if you want. There’s coffee’, and she reminds him a little of a ruffled bird with the way she lays her head a little to the side, inviting him in with a charm that embraces her awkwardness.

Her other freak kid, the tall one, appears next to his mother in the door frame, shoulders up and eyes wide when he sees him, a deer catching sight of a wolf.

‘Why would you want to speak to Will?’ he asks and it’s more of an accusation than a question, really. Billy feels his teeth grind against each other and, by instinct rather than will, his lips twists into a half snarl, half predator smile.

‘Here for a little advice, big brother. From one kind of freak to another, if you get what I mean.’ His answer doesn’t satisfy by the look on Jonathans face and Billy wonders where he was in the whole mess that he conjurs this anger in him. Wonders what crimes he saw him commit. Mrs Byers is between them the moment Jonathan takes a step towards Billy, hand in front of her sons chest and they share a look that holds a conversation. By the way her son huffs and throws his arms in the air, before disapearing inside, he has lost the argument.

Mrs Byers shakes her head and turns back to Billy with a smile, gestures for him to come inside while apologizing ‘I’m sorry for Jonathan, he’s been… on edge, since everything. I guess we all are.’ She presses a mug of coffee in his hands and he looks down on her, her small frame and messy fringe and by the way she meets his look he knows she knows. Not how much, but probably more than him. ‘Yeah’, he says ‘I guess we are.’

He stands in the middle of the living room aimlessly for a moment, the mug of coffee hot in his hands, and he eyes his surroundings much like a hostage would search for all the possible exits in a room.

It’s all dark wood and busy love, a childs drawings on the fridge, half dead plants on the window sills and undone dishes in the sink. He has a faint memory of the place, but only remembers white and blue everywhere around him and the red streaming down Harringtons face. The prick of a needle through the adrenaline and Max’ pointed threat.

Mrs Byers (‘Joyce, please, Mrs Byers always makes me feel so old’) bustles around the place, trying to subtly clean up the living room, before coming back around to gesture for him to sit down on the couch, before taking place on the one across from him. There’s a certain kind of nervous energy around her, but not in an unsettling way. A kind where she has dishelved hair and her clothes are a little too big, soft worry lines on her face and a warm smile. Billy is almost as wary of her as of the sun.

They sit there for a second in awkward silence, Jonathan standing broodily in the door to the hallway, staring him down from afar and Billy is looking everywhere, except their faces. He notices the strain of paint that’s not completly opaque, stares next to Jonathans head, instead of at him. His face swims somewhere in his memories, along neon signs and echoing screams. There was a time Billy would have this kid frozen in fear within seconds, but now, that he is _this_ , the only thing he finds himself capable of doing is glare at him, before averting his gaze, shoulders drawn up, leg bouncing, eyes restless. When Joyce speaks again, his eyes snap to her with an intensity that makes her draw back a bit.

‘Your name is Billy, right? Hargrove?’ she asks now. ‘I think I’ve seen your mother ‘round the store a few times. Susan, isnt it?’ There’s a clock ticking somewhere and Billy grips the mug a little tighter.

‘She’s my stepmom.’

‘Ah’, Joyce says, stumbling for a second. ‘Well, she seemed very sweet the few times I saw her. Are you-’

‘Is it ok if I smoke in here?’ he interrupts, because he doesn’t think he can keep this up, this pleasant talk, this thing he used to be so good at. Not with exhaustion scratching his nerves raw, not with how bright the light is or how strong the urge is to run as far as he can. He clenches his jaw in an attempt to even out the pressure of his headache. The other Byers kid squints his eyes at him, but doesn’t say anything.

Joyce nods, ‘Of couse’, hands him her pack of cigarettes when he searches for his own and realizes he must have left them in the car. She lits herself one, too and for a moment they just sit there, smoke slowly rising, no sound but the nervous bouncing of Billy’s leg and he thinks.

What the fuck was he doing here? What the hell was his plan? Ask some little kid how he dealt with what Billy doesn’t seem to be able to overcome?

Shame burns deep in his stomach and he puts down the mug on the living room table harder than intended, the sharp sound of porcelan on glass echoing through the room. Dark coffe sloshes over the sides and he feels it drip warm off his fingers.

He stands up before he realizes, looks down on a perplexed Joyce, sees Mrs. Wheeler and her smashed in head, only he didn’t do that, did he? He’s not sure, everything is blurred and how could he get any more fucking _pathetic_.

‘This was a stupid idea’, he says, turns on his heels and is out the door before Joyce can get out a word. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jonathan jump up from his spot against the wall, startling towards his mother, instead of Billy and he thinks _no more, no more._ The door creaks when he throws it open and it grates against his scalp and he thanks all gods and devils that the sun is covered with dark clouds.

-

The camaro roars and Billy sees the road like a tunnel, dark spots dancing on the side of his vision as he goes 90 miles per hour, fields and trees only shadows and his mind _screams_.

Billy had thought, back on the floor of the Sauna of Hawkins Public Swimming Pool, sobbing and writhing, the eyes of his sister on him and the force of the demon inside of him, torn and wailing for help and forgiveness, that he would never feel humiliation again. Not after begging and laying his soul bare and have it snatched away the second his body was of convenience again. The violation of the act, the knowledge, that he was completely powerless - how could one feel shame again, after something like that?

Yet it curls around his shoulders now, an implosion in his chest and he turns the music to full volume before a half scream, half sob rips from his throat. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ A punch against the steering wheel, again and again, before he brings the car to a screeching halt and screams some more, trashes in its confines like his mind in the elusive claws of the Mind Flayer, only that this cage is solid. His angers roars freely now and he kicks open the door, almost falling in the hurry he is to get out, out.

The clouds are more scarce now, a few streams of sun falling through and Billy screams at them through the trees, before throwing them the finger with both hands. He’s heaving now, his throat dry and raw from use, head spinning with the exertion and monsters are real and one of them had lived inside of Billy. He stumbles back against the camaro, his legs giving out under him and the metal is cool against his back as he slides down to the forest floor.

That’s when a slow laugh starts to built up in his throat, a low silent thing at first that grows with every second Billy thinks about the absurdity of it all and he doesn’t know if he’s gone full on insane when the laughter comes out in loud harsh bellows shaking his body. Once it starts, he doesn’t seem able to stop it, laughs until he has to hold his sides in pain, which makes him laugh even harder. He looks up at the sky, the tops of the trees spinning around his vision, his voice echoing throught the spaces between them.

The outburst fades as quickly as it came, the woods swallowing up the sound like it never existed. Billy stays slumped against his car, a lazy grin still on his lips and he thinks he ready to cry now.

-

Steve Harrington is fucking livid.

The day had been pretty good up to now; the shift at the local movie store had been fine, Dustin had come over the last half hour before the end, entertaining him and Robin with recent tales of how he had found the perfect way to steady the connection through the channels to get a clear signal to Uta. Turns out Robin is kind of a nerd about that as well, discussing the merrits of different models of walkie-talkies with Dustin and it fills Steve with a kind of fondness, seeing his two friends bond over dumb nerd shit.

The kids had been out, on some sort of secret meeting to discuss the status quo; Dustin had explained, about El and the continued absense of her powers, Max’ update of the state of her brother (‘even weirder than before, if you can believe that. Barely gets out of his room, stares into space and all that. If we hadn’t seen it in Will before, you’d think he was still possessed’).

They had announced that meeting secretly the day before, Dustin explaining the detail in code. Robin teaches Steve in their breaks and when the store is slow, so he has been getting better at deciphering them, even able to send back an answer, promising to drive Dustin and Will back home that afternoon.

When Jonathan opens the door on them more agitated than Steve has seen him in weeks, he knows something is wrong, puts his hand on Jonathans back as they enter the house and asks quietly ‘Everything ok there, buddy?’

‘Billy was here’

There is a moment of silence, before ‘I’m sorry, _what_?’

‘Billy fucking Hargrove was here’ Jonathan laughs a laugh that is not really a laugh, runs his hands through his hair. ‘Said he wanted to talk to Will. Stormed out of here like five minutes ago. No fucking idea why.’

Steves anger doesn’t come all at once, builts while he assures Jonathan he shouldn’t worry too much, hugs Joyce hello and goodbye, is in his car before long, where he sits and thinks and how _dare_ he.

Who does he think he fucking is, coming to Wills _house_. Hadn’t that family already gone through enough? All that shit, the whole nightmare repeating itself over and over again. He sees the strain of it on all of them, the shadows under Joyces’ haunted eyes, Jonathan, more drawn into himself than even before and Will, who jumps at every noise. And still, they make it work, keeping their family together, more clinging than anything else.

Joyce had been protective of Will since the day Steve had gotten to known her, since she got him back from the dead and he came back her son and something else. It’s none of Steve’s business, but he thinks, somewhere in her mind, everytime he’s out of her sight, she’s looking for her son lost in between the lights. It’s in the way she hugs him, when Steve brings Will back, whenever she or Jonathan can’t pick him up. She thanks him for it less in words than in gestures, let’s him stay over for dinner more than once, Steve thankful to not spend any time in a house that’s either empty or filled with an air of disapproval. He spends many evenings doing the dishes with her, listening to radio tunes and sometimes, when the songs are slow and her sons are already in their rooms, they will talk.

She had asked if he still owned his bat, back the first time he offered to take the kids anywhere, fresh out of the new trauma, bruises on his face and scraped knuckles. What a ridiculous question, he had thought, paranoia scratching at the edge of his mind almost constantly back then. Joyce had seemed all the more glad for it anyway.

The trees fly by Steve and he’s so deep in his thoughts that he almost doesn’t notice the blue camaro at the side of the road, nearly wrecks his own car with how hard he hits the brakes. He sits there a moment, turns in his seat and sure enough, that’s his fucking car. Who else in godforsaken Hawkins drives a blue camaro, ego overflowing, almost yelling ‘look at me’. So very fitting for someone like Billy. Someone who demands attention so naturally, like the sun, uncaring of how many in his vicinity he burns.

Steves hands clench around the wheel at the thought of him anywhere near the Byers, after everything he’d done, possessed or not. How they just let him walk free after that. Steve almost doubts that the Mind Flayer could have made Billy any more monster than he already was. His hand comes up to the narrow silver scar on his forehead, half disappearing into his hairline, sensory memory of pain exploding in his face, blood in his eyes making it hard to see, blue eyes burning into his.

Steve gets out of the car.

-

It took weeks for the swelling and bruising to go down, weeks during which he had seen Hargove, passed him in the hallway and basketball practice.

He could never be sure how much Billy remembered of that night or if it bothered him, or if waking up in a drugged haze with bloodied knuckles and a blackout were common enough for someone like him to not waste too much time on dwelling on it.

Steve is not as dumb as everyone thinks he is. He might not be the fastest to pick up on government conspiracy theories or math problems, or even flirting with girls. What he knows however, is how to notice peoples behaviors around him.

Billy had still been an ass, but during the whole rest of their time in high school he had not touched Steve even once outside of checking him at Basketball practice and even then there was no comparison to the viciousness that had been behind every move before. There were times where Billy would just stare at him in the middle of the hall, when he thought Steve was going through his locker or listening to Nancy and Jonathan. He couldn’t pinpoint the look in his eyes. Billy Hargrove is not someone who looks away quickly when you catch him staring; but even when their eyes met across the hall, it was difficult to know what he was thinking.

They never talked, not really. Except for once, Steve waiting for the kids to get out of the arcade to get them back home, pink light on the early evening sky, with trees whose silouette were too dark for Steve to be comfortable with. He had never been a smoker, not like Carol and Tommy, but ever since he felt the crunch of bones and flesh under the nails of his bat, his hands had started to develop a tick, gotten restless and twitchy if he didn’t occupy them with something.

He had only wanted to smoke in peace, a cigarette next to the trashbin until he could finally get home. Only, Billy had been there too, half hidden behind the wall and he had stared at Steve something startled, more surprised than Steve had ever seen him. Like he had caught him in a moment he was not prepared to be Billy Hargrove, King of Hawkins.

There was an awkward greeting, Steve even more eager to smoke now than before and the next time he looked up at Billy, his mouth opened, like he wanted to ask something, only to bite his lip and look away, a frown shadowing his pretty face.

‘I’m sorry.’ Steve looked up again, not believing his ears, but his eyes confirmed, Billy taking a hit of his cigarette before vaguely gesturing to his face. ‘About all that. Shitty night, you know how it is.’

‘Yeah’, he answered, cautiously. ‘It _was_ a shitty night.’

‘No hard feelings, right?’ There was a drawl in Billy voice as he said that, letting the stump of his cigarette fall to the ground before stomping it out. Steve eyed him, as he moved closer to him, something in his movements that he’d seen before, only he couldn’t quite place it. ‘All kinds of things happen in weird places like that.’

‘I guess, they do’

‘It _was_ a crazy night.’

‘Yeah, I think we’ve established that.’

‘Only’, and that’s where Billy licked his lips and Steve remembered where he’d seen the mannerism on him; it was the tone of his voice when he talked up a girl at her locker, the saunter in his walk when he wanted people to look at him. ‘Only, I find myself not quite able to recall all of it.’

‘Your point?’ Steve asked and he was still taller than Billy, righting his posture from where he’d been slumping against the wall to stand in front of him, lazily taking a drag of smoke. Billy stared at him, not losing his intensity, but he could have sworn there was a waver in his eyes, uncertainty floating right under the surface and Steve wondered how much of that confidence was staged.

‘I just-’ Billy began, but they were interrupted by loud arguing, something about who of the Fellowship would have been way more suited for the job than Frodo.

The moment was over and Billy stepped aside, lighting himself a new cigarette and it was like nothing had happened, when he threw a ‘See you at school, Harrington’ over his shoulder.

-

Steve stands next to Billy, red eyes and snotty nose, body not shaking anymore, but instead having gone still as stone.

‘They fixed your car.’ Steve says, because there is exactly nothing else about this situation he is able to handle.

He had been angry when he got out of the car, prepared for a fight, prepared for whatever thing Billy was after coming in touch with true darkness. What he was definetly not expecting, was the sobbing frame of Billy Hargrove against his car, head between his knees and arms around his legs and he looked so _small_.

And now he is staring up at him, not even answering and there are dark shadows under his eyes, hair wild and unkept and Steve _knows_ that look, because he had seen it in his bathroom mirror everytime he went to wash his face after a nightmare. On an impulse, he steps closer to Billy, leaning against his car, before sliding down on the ground next to him. He doesn’t look at him as he does it, but he feels his stare fixed on him, observing every move. Steve looks up at the sky through the pine trees and says: ‘It gets better with time, you know.’

When he looks over to Billy, his frown has deepened, body leaning away from Steve and his posture is downright hostile. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ The red rims around his eyes makes his face even haughtier and Steve notices how skinny Billy looks.

‘I mean the nightmares. They’ll get better. That feeling of being followed all the time? Takes more time, but it won’t drive you crazy anymore.’ He tries to be casual about this, as if these are not the things he stuggles with every day without ever talking about it.

‘And how would you know anything about that?’ Billy snaps, but it’s a pathetic excuse for the venom that used to be behind his words. He barely bothers to hide his confusion, desperation clear as day on his face and something inside of Steve clicks. ‘You don’t remember much of what happened, do you?’ He asks instead of answering and Billys stubborn silence and thin pressed mouth confirm his suspicion.

‘Shit man’, Steve breathes and runs a hand through his hair, before looking around. ‘How about we get back to my place? Shouldn’t really talk about this in the open like this, they’d be pissed.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been a real struggle, there was so much writing and rewriting and scratching out of things, but i think it's finally in a place i can be alright with. thank you all for waiting, the positive response to the first chapter truly blew me away!


	3. Chapter 3

There’s a profound kind of emptiness inside of Steve; it’s the lingering kind, the one that does not push itself into the spotlight but instead hovers, like the darkness above the stage, from which all the lights point away. He feels it the first time after getting into a fight with someone (and losing), the gnawing of apathy under bruised pride and skin. It’s there when he breaks Jonathans camera, stands in the bathroom at a party and watches Nancy tear them to pieces. When he sets her free and watches them fall together so easily.

It’s there when his mind goes numb with Billy’s punches, red filtering over his vison, dull throbbing in his skull when he wakes up in a moving car. When he thinks that there is still something to hold onto, asks ‘Nancy?’ and makes a fool out of himself.

In a way, it is like he is watching himself living life from a passive perspective. Having things happen to him and unable to do anything about it. There’s a certain kind of peace that comes with accepting his own lack of power, to do anything about his life other than deal with it. To realize that takes him the better part of his adolescence and looking back he cringes at the memories of his antagonization of others in a kicking-and-screaming kind of way to feel in control.

There’s not much to do after school, after the nightmares and waking horrors of the second time, no prospects, no aspiration and no passion left in him, so he does the only thing that makes sense: Spit in his fathers face by turning down the job at his company and entering the capitalist screaming neon hell of the new local mall. The look on his face is almost worth it.

Until the emptiness comes roaring, day after day a neverending cycle of smiling and repeating the same lines over and over, blue navy outfit and dread under his skin. He thinks: this is what the next 50 years of his life will look like. Having people look at him like some kind of subhuman; the jarring realisation that your high school status did not carry on into your retail job, that the lines that used to make girls swoon at him now made them laugh in his face.

It’s like everything is so obvious for everyone around him; how to talk, how to behave, how to live. And he’s flailing in the open space, without destination, or even a vague idea of what the fuck he is doing. His body feels wrong on him, like it’s something he has to learn anew, amnesia on how to navigate his shell in any way that makes sense.

Then, of course, everything goes to hell again. They almost die, get tortured by russian spys, he falls for a girl that does not laugh in his face but instead reveals a taste in women that is even worse than his own. He crashes his own car into Billys and the screeching grates on his bones like Billy’s fist against his skull. In its obsurdity, the whole affair makes perfect sense, given the last two years of his life.

The aftermath is not worse than the last times; it just adds to it, like his nightmares get as bored of repeating themselves as he is of them. Demodogs are joined by whatever abomination that giant of convulsing flesh and teeth was, haunted eyes in the dark of people he knows, only they aren’t themselves anymore. The thing is that now some of the monsters in his dreams are human, the agonizing stretching of time in pain with only the next blow as sign of it passing. Knowing they understand his pleas, but just don’t care is a morbid new horror to add to the list.

Robin making a pass at him only brings them closer together and it almost feels like retail in a movie rental store is not as boring with her as it really is. They hide in the break room whenever the store’s lazy, early Wednesdays and greasy chips. They watch those old horror movies Robin loves and overenthusiastic sci-fi flicks Dustin recommends and Steve cries while watching Breakfast Club when the store finally gets a copy of it.

They talk sometimes, Robin and him, about what happened. She’s surprisingly okay with most of it and Steve remembers the nights after the first time he swung a nail covered bat at something from another dimension. He looks at her and tries to see any of the signs; the dark shadows under eyes, the tilt of a head to listen to silent footsteps on wet soil, the paranoid looking around. Steve hates himself for it, but had kind of hoped for it. To have someone who gets it, who would know what he means when he says his dreams follow him into the day. He can be selfish like that.

-

Billy sits in his car and he is tired.

Fatigue sits in heavy dark shadows under his eyes, his body feeling sluggish and every movement is delayed and unccordinated. There are black spots dancing around his vision whenever he blinks. He's been chasing and running away from sleep ever since they took him off the strong stuff. While he was on that he did little other than that, deep, black, dreamless sleep clinging to him like wet clothes.

Now he can't fucking sleep, no matter how much he tries. Doesn't matter his feet barely carry him, doesn't matter his eyes fall shut when he's walking through the house like a ghost while everyone else is out. He's been rumaging through Susans cabinets in search for the sleeping pills he knows she secretly takes but the bitch must hide them in some other less obvious place where Neil won't stumble over them accidentally.

When he does manage to pass out on his bed from pure exhaustion it's never for long, scene after scene replaying in front of his eyes and he is right back there and the sheer terror, the fear, the feeling of being caged in a little box in the back of his mind, screaming and kicking and watching himself do things that have him wake up sweaty and dry heaving, fists clenched so tight his palms are criss crossed by little half moon scabs.

By now it really doesn't matter if he is asleep or awake because his nightmares follow him into the waking world. He is just so tired. So tired of Max looking at him like that, even more terrified than before, can't stand her hovering and almost reaching out to him but always turning on her heel in the last moment. Neil has been oddly calm, but Billy knows that's just a deception, a calm before the storm and he can't for the life of him bring himself to be afraid of a slap or a knee in the gut because at least that is undeniably real.

Some nights he just cries and cries and cries, broken sobs like the howling of a wounded animal. Afterwards he lays in bed and he feels cracked open and hollowed out, curled up in himself staring into the room unseeing, eyes dry and burning, salt on his cheeks. The emptiness settles into him so deeply, his limbs are too heavy to move an inch. That's when it's easy to fall asleep, even with the knowledge of the nightmares that will most certainly engulf him. There is no fight left in him.

Billy is tired and for the first time in a long time, he just wants someone else to take over for him. Now that it’s just him in his head again, he feels lost. The things he used to control by pure energy and charisma don’t matter anymore and while his body still deeply feels the instinct to fight and snap at anything that comes near him, he knows it’s pointless. Nothing will erase the scars on his body or his torn mind and he just can’t take it anymore. He doesn’t want to.

Billy almost jumps out of his skin when he hears Harringtons quick one-two-three knocking on the window of his car, gesturing for him to get out.

They're in his driveway, big and unfamiliar house in front of him and it takes more energy than he ever wants to admit to open up the door of his car to follow Steve inside and Billy forces his shoulders to relax. He pointedly looks away from the mirror in the hallway, but not fast enough to not catch the red rims around his eyes (they still feel swollen from the crying).

Steve leads him through a way too big living room to a kitchen he doesn't know is orderly or chaotic. Everything obviously has its place, the sterility of someone else cleaning your home, but here and there he sees Steve; cereal bowls stacking in the sink, a trashcan overflowing with coffetabs, half rotten fruit and pizza cartons. He used to spent so much time watching Harrington, being in his home is almost overwhelmingly intimate.

'You want something to drink?' Harrington asks over his shoulder, already fixing himself a cup of coffe, taking hold of a second cup out of the shelf, then makes a thoughtful face. ‘We also have some beer in the fridge and whiskey somewhere around here.’

Just the thought of alcohol pooling in his empty stomach makes Billy nauseous. As much as he wants to escape the agonizing terrors in his head, it is only him inside of it again and anything that lets that hold slip sends him into a panic almost worse than the nightmares. 'Coffe is fine', he says while trying not to breath to much. Even though coffee seems almost as unappealing as anything else, Billy is thankful for it; this way he will at least have something to hold onto.

Having Steve - hell, having anyone - see him like this is humiliating. At any other point before the whole disaster, Billy would never have considered allowing him to look at him in this state, would have probably beat him until his eyes were too swollen to see him. But now, after so much time spend in absolute submission, humiliation is like a second skin clinging to him. Being bothered by this seems almost hypocritical. At least, he thinks, at least it was Steve who found him.

When both of them have a warm mug in their hands, Billy doesn’t want to look up from it, doesn’t want to see the expression on Steve’s face. There is nothing he could find there that he would like. For a few moments they just stand awkwardly in the kitchen, but Billy has no energy to do something about it, his throat still raw from screaming and crying. He is so exhausted from fatigue, burned out from his breakdown, he feels himself slightly swaying and tries to casually lean against the kitchen counter, letting it ground him.

Steve clears his throat. ‘So, why exactly where you at the Byers house?’ He doesn’t quite manage to not make the question sound like an accusation.

Billy presses his lips together, clenching the handle of the mug. What is he supposed to say? That he can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t go into the sun, without in some way being reminded what he did, what was done to him? The constant dread curling through his body, that makes just existing a living nightmare? A small part of the old him rears its head, a beaten and raw defiance. This last piece of keeping face, although he has no idea what face Steve remembers him wearing.

After it becomes clear that Billy has decided on stubborn silence, Steve frowns.

‘You have any idea what these people went through? What was done to them?’

That makes Billy look up. Up at beautiful kind Steve, who even when he has that furious look in his eyes and doesn’t have a single reason to trust him takes him back to his home to talk to him. Steve, who has dark shadows under his eyes and looks way skinnier than he remembers. Steve, who never plants his feet, always flailing around his life and now seems like the most stable thing Billy has ever laid his eyes on.

‘How much of what you did _do_ you even remember?’ Steve's voice gets smaller at that, a mixture of disdain and disbelief on his face. He runs his hand through his hair in an agitated gesture and there is a small silver scar on his forehead, half fading into his hairline.

Billy is tired. He sighs and looks down at the dark coffee gently lapping at the edge of the cup. ‘Yes and no.’ His voice sounds rough and he clears his aching throat. ‘Parts of it. The memories come and go.’ He swallows. ‘I try not to think about it.’

It takes Steve a moment to answer, like he’s struggling to find the right reaction. After a moment, his voice giving away no emotion, he asks: ‘Does it work?’

Billy pries his eyes off the coffee cup, looking at Steve’s face, who already knows the answer.

‘No.’

-

Steve has trouble grasping the person that stands in front of him. They had not been friends before, barely acquaintances. Yet there had always been something between them, Billy seeking Steve out from the start, although he never quite made his motive clear. Hovering around his orbit, ever so slightly and when he actually did enter, his advances were confusing at best.

Shit, this was probably one of the longest conversation they have ever had and still it is impossible for Steve to remember a time after Billy appeared where he wasn’t on his mind in some way. There had always been a connection, if by knowing the feeling of each others fists or competing on the basketball court or the way Billy was sometimes looking at him, his eyes holding more than Steve allowed himself to think about. It had been months since they had last talked before Steve saw him again, contorted by that thing into something he barely remembered.

‘Is that why you where there? To remember more of what happened?’  
  
Billy downs his coffee in one long gulp, puts it down on the kitchen counter and visibly flinches at the sound of it. ‘I know what fucking happened. Mostly, anyway, the weird girl explained it, but’ He stops, as if talking took him a great deal of willpower. He crosses his arms, but where the gesture used to make him bigger, taller, now it just makes him seem to curl into himself. It’s disturbing, really and Steve forces himself to remember Billy big and tall, threatening in just his presence. Remembers the sight of him, arms outstretched, keeping the Mind Flayer away from Eleven with his bare hands, fanged tendril crawling over his arms, digging in his skin. Most of Billy's skin is covered in clothes now and Steve wonders at the scars the attack must have left.

‘Well, she never fucking explained what to do afterwards. So, she mentioned that other kid, the nerdy one. That he was also possessed or whatever, so i thought-’ He stops again, pressing his lips together, his face a fluctuation of anger and shame.

In the back of his mind, Billy had always been more of a creature than a person, everything about him amplified into extremes, oozing with violent energy, like a star about to explode. The image of him standing up to the Mind Flayer to protect someone else, with no regards to his own life stood in such stark contrast to everything he had ever seen of him, incorporating it in his view of Billy seemed impossible. Much easier, seeing him as the catalyst of the latest almost-end of the world. Of course he had always known that it wasn’t really Billy’s fault, the death and violence and hurt they all had to suffer. That like Will he had been under the control of the Mind Flayer, a victim.

At that thought Steve startles, slowly making the connection. He looks at Billy, really looks at him, shoulders drawn high, curved into himself, the haunted look in his eyes barely shadowing the agony in them. ‘You wanted so see Will because the same happened to both of you.’ He hears the disbelief in his own voice, unable to hide it at the absurdity of the situation. ‘You wanted to ask for help.’

At the last word, Billy cringes away, but doesn’t deny it. The embarrassment on his face changes into defiance. ‘‘twas a stupid idea anyway’ he mumbles, avoiding Steve's eyes. ‘I just wanna go back to normal, but i can’t even leave the house without being afraid of my own shadow.’

Steve takes a step towards him and Billy takes one back, startled and confused, eyeing him suspiciously as Steve holds up his palms apologetically. ‘Sorry. Just wanted to take the coffee cup to the sink. You’re done with it, right?’ Billy nods and relaxes slightly, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, opening up his posture wearily. As Steve reaches past him, he is so close for a moment he can feel the slight shaking going through Billy’s body and he could swear feeling him lean in on him just the faintest bit. He holds the cup for a moment, not taking one step away from Billy, contemplating his next words. He feels Billy’s eyes on him and breathes in. He smells worn denim, sweat and fear.

‘You know’ he starts, with a small smile on his face ‘that while you were being controlled by that stupid horror show, I got caught by russian spies and they beat me up for hours?’ He can feel the way this throws Billy off, staring at him like he had lost his mind. Steve can’t help the tiny bitter laugh that escapes his throat. ‘I still wake up from nightmares, that I’m back in a room with them and it’s just this flurry of pain and fear. Before that it was the demodogs and a tunnel full of fire. Funny thing is, I was never alone there. Always had some friend stuck with me. Somehow I’m the only one who can’t fucking deal with any of it.’

Billy regards him carefully, noticing the olive branch Steve is holding out to him.

‘This may sound insane, but maybe you’re lucky. You’re not the only one.’ Steve says, finally properly looking up at Billy, into his deep blue eyes that hold so much terror in them.

‘I think, you should talk to Will.’

-

Every part of Billy is aching to be touched. Standing so close to Steve in this big house is agonizingly familiar. The deceiving distance of a hall, a school room, a courtyard. Seeing him heal and turn back to this impossible person that still was so infuriatingly good. That he got to ruin once but just couldn’t bring himself to again, no matter the very core of him itched to reach out and just take what was his, what he claimed. It made it impossible to take his eyes off of him, an almost obsession and the longer he watched, the longer he wanted and the more he realized he never would never have him. That reaching out to him would destroy the very thing he wanted. So he allowed this selfish kindness.

Looking at Steve now, with the bitterness on his tongue and darkness behind his eyes, he thinks, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was never the one to taint Steve, that his stains paled to what he had seen, like Neil was just a shadow of what had lived in his body.

The determined look in Steve's eyes holding his own is almost unbearable, but unable to look away Billy can just stand and be in awe. His whole body is gravitating towards Steve, towards his kindness, his softness, his quietly despairing gentleness.

‘I think you should talk to Will, but i also think that I should call first. Just so we avoid any more people upsetting, y’know?’ Steve is smiling at him now and Billy can only nod dumbfounded, as Steve turns to walk to the telephone in the living room. Over his shoulder he calls ‘Make yourself at home’

‘I remember the tunnels.’ At this Steve stops moving. ‘I remember the burning.’ He can see every muscle in Steve’s body tensing as he turn his head back to him, eyes wide not with fear of him, but with old panic flaring up inside him. Billy shrugs. ‘Part of why it’s all so confusing is because not all the memories are mine.’ Steve bites his lip hard, turns his eyes to the floor and nods. ‘Yeah, I think I remember Will mentioning something like that.’

Steve stands still in the living room for a while, looking lost. Then he nods again, decisively. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m taking myself up on that whiskey.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! It's been almost a full year since i last updated on here. Much stuff happened, but the important thing is that i'm back! I wanna thank everyone for their lovely comments, your investment was truly the thing keeping me attached to this fic. This chapter was a battle. I probably rewrote it like 3 times, so this will have to do
> 
> the trauma boys are back babey!


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